


stop your crying (helpless feeling)

by rosewitchx



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Blood and Injury, Christmas, Comics/Movie Crossover, Eye Trauma, Eyepatch, Gen, I cant kill him you guys im so sorry i love him too much he has a cameo, Kidnapping, One Shot, RIPeter Lives, Scott Pilgrim References, Self-Esteem Issues, Team as Family, Torture, Unethical Experimentation, Whump, just for peni’s backstory, this isnt a fun one guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:27:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22081801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosewitchx/pseuds/rosewitchx
Summary: breathe. that’s what noir always told her to do when she was nervous. just breathe. sometimes, things got a little too painful for her to handle, but if she just kept breathing it would all be okay.this, however, is a little more than she bargained for.— peni and gwen get kidnapped by a rogue ai on christmas day. it’s as fun as you think.
Relationships: Peni Parker & Gwen Stacy, Peni Parker & Peter Benjamin Parker, im insulted that this isnt a tag, just peni and everyone guys, past peni parker/addy brock
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	stop your crying (helpless feeling)

**Author's Note:**

> title: the world is ugly - my chemical romance  
> i wrote this months ago as part of this super crazy fucked up au that shall never see the light of day because its just so fucked up and nasty and convoluted and nonsensical and relies on so many headcanons and canon deviations and there’s just so many variations of the thing to ever make it Make Sense but i just love this particular variation so much. so i edited it and now it’s a standalone thing.  
> i really hope you read the tags. please don’t hurt yourself by reading stuff you can’t handle. i know how it is. be safe!

_breathe._ that’s what noir always told her to do when she was nervous. _just breathe._ sometimes, things got a little too painful for her to handle, but if she just kept breathing it would all be okay. 

this, however, is a little more than she bargained for. 

her spider crawls onto her hand from the bottom bunk and she tries to breathe. she can feel what it feels; it’s second nature, now.

“are you awake?” 

gwen’s voice is a quiet murmur from above her. her legs dangle from the upper bunk, and in the total darkness peni _thinks_ can see the edges of her body as she lets go and falls to the concrete floor. 

“trying to think,” peni says, staring back up. “are you okay?”

gwen doesn’t answer, not for a moment. then, she shakes her head. “can i sleep with you?”

she sounds frailer than peni thinks she realizes. 

moments later they’re snuggled tightly together in her bed. gwen reaches out for her hand; she’s shivering, but it would be rude to point that out, so peni squeezes gwen’s hand and pretends she isn’t scared too. they talk strategies, escape routes, anything that might help them; they pointedly avoid talking about being rescued. won’t do them any good, they say. the boys don’t even know they’re missing. 

being captured by a rogue ai, after all, wasn’t how she expected her holidays to go. 

they’d spent christmas at miles’ place (the first christmas with peter, since he’d come back from the dead with little explanation and no more than a shrug), then went over to visit b, who hadn’t come because mj’s pregnancy was having complications, and after all that they’d started dropping everyone in their respective dimensions. but when it came time for peni’s world, gwen suddenly said “i’ll go with you”, out of the blue. “someone has to help you carry all your gifts.”

peni had squinted, then, but didn’t think much of it; she appreciated gwen caring for her that way, even if she could easily lift all that weight on her own. later, gwen would tell her the real reason she’d insisted on coming over: the screaming inside her head telling her danger was looming in the horizon. 

and it was. the second the portal closed behind them a figure had dropped in front of them, awfully-familiar and eight-legged, and they both had dropped everything and jumped into the fight. peni didn’t have her suit with her, however, and with her not being too accustomed to hand-to-hand fighting and having being taken off-guard, the figure easily knocked them out before they had any real chance at all. 

but she kept breathing. it was all she could do: she would’ve tried hacking into OCK’s systems, but there was nothing inside their room she could tamper with, and she never had enough time outside it to even try. gwen had tried swiping something from one of the other rooms the night before, too, and all it had done for them both was earn her a twisted ankle and a bruised neck. 

now, walking out of their shared room in hell, alabama, headed towards Impending Doom as her spider-sense put it, she just can’t help but thinking that breathing is getting a little too hard. 

_breathe. five seconds in, six out._

“it’s going to be okay!,” she hears gwen shout from behind. she quickens her pace, right behind OCK’s uncanny body: they both know that’s a lie. 

she’s led into a familiar room, the one with the chains on one wall and computer monitors on the other. OCK waits for her to step in, then locks the steel door behind them. “ _against the wall_ ,” it orders. peni complies. “ _i like you better like this, when you behave. you can be so insufferable, sometimes._ ”

peni just wants to know who the hell programmed this thing. if she stays still, they won’t need the chains. then again, when OCK starts prodding her, it can be really hard. 

_breathe. breathe._

“ _look at me._ ” peni looks up. OCK doesn’t really have a face, not in the traditional sense (not like sp//dr); the android has an amorphous gunmetal body, eight sharp limbs spiraling around a octahedron-like core with a small screen on one of its faces showing a simple command console. yet peni can still picture it in its voice, so similar to the doc from miles’ world: she can see her face as she speaks cruelties, doing that awful smile of hers, the one that always sends chills down her back. she tries her hardest to remain focused, even with its extremities snaking up on her shoulders. “ _better. you have to pay attention. i know you struggle a lot with that, hm?_ ”

she thinks back to noir as OCK takes its weekly blood sample. peni does not know why it wants those. she thinks back to gwen. she knows she can hear her, even all the way over here. she doesn’t want her to worry. it’s fine; peni can handle it. she’s had worse.

 _it’s not fine,_ she’d say if she were in here with her. she’d struggle, deviate the attention from the younger girl.

(peni hates it when she does that. gwen’s barely a few months older than her.)

“ _you’re distracted. what’s on your mind?_ ,” OCK asks her. she looks at the ai again, as if asking for permission. “ _an answer is required._ ”

“it’s just— gwen-nee _,_ ” she says, after a pause. 

“ _and what about her?_ ”

peni looks down at her shackles, assesses the situation, then looks back up and asks OCK, “why are you doing this to her?”

the little console lines up with strings of code, but the machine doesn’t even _stop_ to give her a real answer. “ _please elaborate._ ”

 _who are you doing this for?,_ she wants to scream. 

_i wanna go home,_ she wants to scream. 

“she’s always coming back so injured she can’t walk without crying,” peni says instead. this is gonna get her in so much trouble. “she’s really trying her best, and you just— i just don’t get it, wouldn’t you prefer healthy test subjects so you can get the best possible data? why is she even a subject? she’s not— she isn’t from around here.”

 _breathe._ OCK is processing her reply, figuring out the best way to answer her inquiry. _breathe. breathe. five in, six out._ the longer OCK spends in silence, the worse the punishment will be. it’s been ten seconds. and counting. _breathe. breathe. breathe._

when OCK finally speaks, it’s a relief. “ _well_ ,” it starts, “ _you’re both very well-behaved young girls. spider-girls. it is fun to make you cry._ ”

 _fun._ her blood boils. this hunk of scrap really got hate coded deep into its systems.

“it’s not fun,” peni retorts. her spider-senses are screaming at her, but she pushes through. “we’re really trying.”

“ _you’re both idiots_ ,” OCK says. peni takes in a deep breath. _don’t say it,_ she tells herself, _don’t fucking do it—_

“it’s not _our_ fault you’re from the stone age,” peni blurts out. 

OCK looks at her. and then it beeps. 

oh no. 

“ _arms up,_ ” it orders. peni complies. she always does, she _has to,_ even if it hurts her. she lets OCK chain her to the wall, first her wrists, then her ankles, and she only trembles a little as the chains pull her back against the wall. 

“ _you’re incorrigible,_ ” OCK says. “ _my analysis said you could be such a good girl and instead you’re like this._ ”

peni thinks back of the old movies she’d watch with her spider brothers and sister. “i don’t know the meaning of the word,” she says, knowing it wholeheartedly. 

the android seems to pick up on the sarcasm, at least, as it slashes against her hip with its sharpened appendages. she whimpers, trying to keep her voice low, but she knows gwen heard. she can feel her upset. “ _silence is required_ ,” OCK barks. “ _your voice grates my microphones._ ”

“make me.” peni is gonna regret this. 

one of the arms buries itself inches-deep into peni’s shoulder and this time, she can’t help but scream. “ _silence is_ **_required_ ** _._ ”

 _breathe._ her white uniform is now stained red. it hurts. it hurts. (not as badly as the spider bite, not as badly as when dad—)

_breathe. breathe. three in, two out. breathe. in through the nose._

“no,” peni gasps. “i’m never, ever gonna quit.”

_quittin’ just ain’t my schtick._

OCK pulls out its extremity excruciatingly slow. she tries not to squirm around, she tries not to cry; she knows how the machine reacts when either of them is crying. she can feel the wound starting to heal, so fast, her body trying its hardest to prevent blood loss. 

“ _you’re young. that doesn’t mean you’re not disposable._ ” 

(getting out of here in any way would be a blessing.)

“that’s— the plan.”

one of OCK’s arms punches her in the stomach and she tries to stay calm. it’s gonna be okay. the droid is pissed. it has been pissed before (never like this). it’s gonna be—

OCK stabs her through the eye. 

_— pain, blooming through her head, blinding her to anything else, pain, she can’t breathe, it hurts, it’s splitting her skull, she can’t —_

_— there’s someone screaming. her throat aches. those are probably not unrelated. —_

_— breathe —_

_— sp//dr is calling to her. sp//dr is alarmed. sp//dr is scared. she can hear gwen screaming, pounding against a door. she can hear gwen trying to calm down, gwen pacing the room anxiously, gwen sobbing —_

_— i’ll be alright —_

_— she feels a hand against her face. the hand sticks to her face. her face is caked in blood. her face is sticky. have her thoughts always made this little sense? —_

_— it’s like when sp//dr ran out of power and mysterio almost —_

_— it’s like when father —_

_— it’s like when addy and aunt may —_

_— a voice cuts through the fog. her spider-senses flare alive, and she collapses into the floor, the edge dives deeper into her skull, and she whimpers. something carries her and she can feel home so close to her, she can feel her brothers, her sister, her father, her aunt, her girlfriend, and she longs for them —_

_— the blade suddenly leaves her head and things feel damper and she whimpers —_

“i’m here,” she hears someone say. it hurts. it hurts so badly. but she’s safe now. isn’t she? “i know it hurts. i’m so sorry, peni. you’re safe. i’ve got you.”

peni whimpers. fingers run through her hair, and she feels so tired. there’s a struggle happening, beyond her, and she’s almost certain it’s b being stupid again, but honestly she can’t bring herself to stop him. 

“petey,” she cries. noir just holds her tighter. gwen kisses her forehead and she tries to breathe. 

_— “you guys think she’ll regenerate that?,” she hears miles ask, half dazed. she feels a poke at her forehead and hears someone swatting his hand away._

_“i don’t know,” peter says. she can picture his ocean eyes clouded with tears, like a movie star, from the way his voice trembles as he speaks. “b doesn’t think it’s likely.”_

_“you recovered,” gwen points out. she sounds desperate. heartbroken. “from being half_ dead. _”_

 _“i didn’t lose anything. i just_ broke _. peni— she— god damn it.”_

_peni falls asleep shortly after. —_

_breathe,_ noir always says. so she does.

she places the eyepatch on her face, looks at her shaky reflection in her bedroom’s mirror wall and something twists inside her heart. she pushes aside all her hair, and the improvised side fringe covers the eyepatch entirely. 

she looks so fucking stupid, even if miles tries to console her (looking like a cool anime character is not the compliment he thinks it is), but she feels even dumber. 

sp//dr chirps, sitting at her shoulder. downstairs, her uncle ben calls her for breakfast. he’s been trying harder, lately. she can appreciate that. 

peni breathes, grabs her school bag, and tries not to crash against the doorframe. 

**Author's Note:**

> okay i’ll bite i just wanted to give peni an asuka-style eyepatch okay  
> if you dont know what im talkin abt: in the end of evangelion [asuka’s eye goes bye-bye (around 15:00).](https://youtu.be/0AY27gLWhtM) tw: flashing lights, gore, eye trauma :)  
> in the eva rebuilds, [she has a sick eyepatch.](https://youtu.be/yQYc6WRvcos) comics!peni is inspired by nge. self explanatory.


End file.
